Lana Del Rey Strange ‘Freak’ Video Scenes Evoke Charles Manson (see!)

Charles Manson around the time in 1969 his band of followers committed nine murders in a period of five weeks, including the slaying of pregnant actress Sharon Tate. (Photo: Facebook)

Lana Del Rey has a strange habit of releasing music videos that evoke notoriously horrific characters from the past. Her latest clip for “Freak,” an ode to ’60s-era Hippies, seems to allude to one the counter-culture’s strangest mass murderers.

By accident or design, similarities between a bearded man and three women in the video and the notorious Charles Manson are uncanny.

In the summer of 1969, Manson, who led a demonic cult in the California desert, inspired his acolytes to commit a series of nine murders over a five week period.

The victims included pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four other people at her home and, separately, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. The Tate-LaBianca murders became one of the most sensational murder cases in U.S. history.

Although Manson wasn’t present at the murders they were carried out on his orders. Through drugs and sex, he maintained an almost hypnotic control over his followers.

His three most slavish followers were Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten. They participated in the murders. All, including Manson, were eventually convicted and sentenced to long prison terms.

The connection to Del Rey’s video comes at about 26 seconds in. It shows three women paying slavish attention to a long-haired bearded man shortly after he takes a dose of psychedelic drug LSD in a form known as window pane. Manson wore his hair and beard the same way.